It's a pity Sealed Deep Synthesis site is down, because he has excellent deep but easy to follow analyses of those synths. I think I'd go for the SY35 given that it's a ROMpler with FM, whereas the K4 is basically just a ROMpler. Hard to choose though! The K4 has a great choir sound, and it has a filter whereas the Yamaha does not.

Yamaha has far better build quality.

Last edited by madtheory on Thu Aug 30, 2012 2:41 pm, edited 2 times in total.

K4 can make some nice buzzy digital sounds, but is really known for it's ability to make ethereal digital choir sounds. Nice squelchy resonant filter that is sadly underpowered by the DSP and will make a loud 'pop' when pushed too hard. It has a very nice keybed as well.

The SY35 is just a polished TG33, which is great for similar buzzy digital sounds, some spooky choirs, etc, all can have some movement programmed in via the vector stick. The FM capabilities (2 operators) are pretty lame, but it's a nice way to add some girth to the other AWM waves.

In short, they are both fairly similar, and while the K4 can sound more alive, tending that damned filter pop is a nuisance and can stand in the way of some really great sounds (and is a lot sturdier, construction wise). The SY35 is a good synth for filling out mix space with nice background pads, hidden melodies, though it is capable of standing in the front.

I can't really add anything to what has already been said. I have a K4r and TG33 but I used to have a SY35. If you have the desk space I'd suggest looking into the TG33. They're usually under $100 and I slightly prefer their sound to the 16bit SY35. The K4 sells for around the same price and you could probably get it and a TG33 for what the SY35 usually cost. Either way they're all great inexpensive synths that are fairly limited but very useful still.

then you have to hunt around for a complete-ish version of his site.sadly, only a few mp3s were saved, however. saw on some other board that don said he recently emailed sealed to find out the status of the site but never got a reply. hope all is well. his site helped me make numerous purchases and prodded me to get more out of the gear that i have. eternally grateful to him.

whenever i use the wayback machine, i drop a couple of bucks into the till via paypal. it's got to cost two arms and a leg foe them to crawl the web and archive as much of it as tey do, while making it available to the internet for free.

fwiw, i had and loved the sy35, mainly because there was a great site by a passionate spaniard in the late '90s who found and detailed all the hidden parameters of the sy35 and built a pc editor to access them. sadly, that site (http://zipi.fi.upm.es/%7ec950268/) also no longer exists. it taught me how to chsnge the waveforms of the fm operators and many other tricks that brought that board to a new level. many of those hidden parameters were available in the tg33, but the sy35 had more. i've always thought i was going to buy the sy35 again someday. hmmmm.